DROPPED Skyrim Flora Overhaul (by vurt)

[DoYouEvenModBro]

I thought I remember vurt saying at one time that most of his textures were 1k, but I can't confirm that. 

[Redferne]

Well some treebranches are 4096x2048, juniper is 2048x2048 but apparently most of them are 1024 like all the normals.

It is easy to see with the size of the file. Less than 2MB it probably 1k, less than 6MB 2k and over more than 2k.

[DoubleYou]

Version 2 alpha was uploaded today.

[CJ2311]

"Use ugridstoload 15 for best results"

 

*Backs away slowly from the download link*

[TechAngel85]

Even with the memory patch I would never play with anything higher than 7. What is Vurt smokin' over there because I want some?! Yes, my system could handle 15; however, does Vurt not realize this introduces other issues?

[Redferne]

Keep calm, it is an alpha and the LOD files aren't ready yet hence the comment about the uGrids. Because with such a high uGrids, LOD became somehow irrelevent.

You don't need to use uGrids at 15.

[TechAngel85]

I know. Users shouldn't be using any alpha/beta versions with STEP anyway unless they're doing a custom setup because STEP uses v1.87 Basic.

[DoYouEvenModBro]

Maybe he meant ugrids 5 and it was a typo? haha. 

[Octopuss]

Version 2 alpha was uploaded today.

LOL what? That sneaky bastard. He keeps repeating he is temporarily retired from modding, being burned out working on SFO and stuff, and now this? :D Good job, I;m going to check it out right away.

[vurt]

What are the issues of using ugridstoload 15? You have to understand that I just mod the game, i dont play it. I've only looked for graphical errors and stability issues.

 

Also, dont be shy to post on my mod page instead of hiding around here about those issues (since it would be pretty important if a too high ugridstoload causes serious issues).

Edited March 17, 2014 by vurt

[TehKaoZ]

I'm trying to find a post Arthmoor made a while back somewhere on beth forums explaining it.

But basically, expanding ugrids does more than just provide a visual enhancement by pushing LOD's back, your effectively making the game load more cells and as a result things start to break. So not only do visual things load further, but scripts load to accommodate more area doubling that load, certain quest events will trigger way before the player gets within visual range and some will just break because the event loads so far away with the player missing. The famous example was that a giant dies a half a mile away and you get a completed quest for killing it having never seen it.The arthmoor post explains it much better if I could find it, but this is the basic gist. Many people think ugrids just does visuals, but it does way more.

Here's One I found,

Arthmoor: "That said, it's important to keep in mind that there are hundreds of other scripts set up to activate during an OnLoad() event. The more grids you enable, the further away these events will trigger. You may well find it breaking quests as Bethesda's setup assumes it will never be changed from 5. You'll also very likely miss out on a lot of the neat little random road encounters that exist that only function correctly at closer distances.

 

Not to mention, you'll start running into classic cases of AI overload those of us who have played Oblivion will recognize immediately. Skyrim has done a lot to optimize AI but when you start hitting 9/13/15 etc you're going to notice a lot of NPCs just standing around ignoring everything because there's simply too many of them in the loaded area.

 

This sort of thing will also impact quests that fill aliases based on what's in the loaded area. The pool for selection will be significantly larger and you may end up with some unpleasant surprises filling your aliases and doing things you don't want them doing because of it. Which can then lead to further breakage of other things if your aliases have them leave their areas to go do something elsewhere."

Source: https://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1485263-shesons-memory-fix-ctdils-thread-2/page-6?do=findComment&comment=23299305

Edited March 17, 2014 by TehKaoZ

[TechAngel85]

I'm trying to find a post Arthmoor made a while back somewhere on beth forums explaining it.

But basically, expanding ugrids does more than just provide a visual enhancement by pushing LOD's back, your effectively making the game load more cells and as a result things start to break. So not only do visual things load further, but scripts load to accommodate more area doubling that load, certain quest events will trigger way before the player gets within visual range and some will just break because the event loads so far away with the player missing. The famous example was that a giant dies a half a mile away and you get a completed quest for killing it having never seen it.

The arthmoor post explains it much better if I could find it, but this is the basic gist. Many people think ugrids just does visuals, but it does way more.

This is pretty well put. You're basically loading the entire game (graphics, scripts, quests, etc) at a further distance away from the player. As TehKaoZ put it, this breaks a ton of things in the game, mainly dealing with quests. You're also greatly increasing the load on your system. Loading uGrids to 15 will greatly reduce performance and even cripple some systems. That's even if you can get it to load. uGrids 7 is fairly unstable in the vanilla game and trying to push that to 15 in vanilla is impossible. The only way you'll even get 15 to load is with the new Memory Patch included in the SKSE alpha build.

[vurt]

Yes I obviously know about the performance cost since it loads more cells (its the whole idea, after all). I clearly stated that you need a good computer to run at 15 and with 2.0.

 

ugridstoload=15 is stable for me (i use my stress test, posted on my mod page to test for stability problems). Obviously you must use the guide i posted on my mod page to get it running without CTD's, you need the CTD patch and some other things.

 

Any specific quest you can mention that doesnt work? I know that some year ago i ran the game for about 10-15 hours with ugridstoload=9 and did not encounter any quest bugs (the game did CTD every now and then though). I dont really see how it could break events. I mean even at ugridstoload 5 it would be possible for the player to not notice a quest. Lets say a script has started within those 5 cells and is awating the player to possibly approach, but instead he doesnt notice the event and just walks into a neighbouring cell, then it would break the quest since it would be the same thing.. I dont think the game is designed like that, i would need some evidence (youtube is fine). I wish i had a week to test (play) but modding eats up a lot of time.

 

Edit: oh, i also played FO: New Vegas with ugridstoload=9, i was able to complete the whole game. It's designed in the same way with scripts and cells.

 

Edit 2: and yes i can understand that you might miss a few random events, but again, you might miss those with 5 cells too, it's not like you always can see the whole 5 celll radius without anything blocking your view (trees, mountains), the player is constantly running around and switching cells (sometimes really fast if using a horse).. it would be really strange if it would break any of the main quests because the player didnt see the event starting (or just decided to not approach).

Edited March 17, 2014 by vurt

[Octopuss]

vurt, just out of curiosity, what kind of PC do you have that can handle ugrids 15? It's interesting to me, because I have reasonably overclocked i7 3770K, 16GB RAM, and Radeon R9 290 (4GB), which in my opinion is highend setup - and yet, with heavily modded game, highest ugrids I can reasonably play with is 9 (it mostly stay in 45-60 range). 11 seems to works too, but FPS dips into noticeably unpleasant numbers then. Even with 9 I occasionally hit 15-20 for a short moments under specific conditions.

P.S. Play the game a bit, you might find it fun :P

Edited March 17, 2014 by Octopuss

[vurt]

i7 @4.9, 32GB, Titan. FPS is "acceptable", around 35-37 average, never seen it lower than 30 which i find acceptable considering how it looks (I run with super samling too which is rather heavy on the performance). But yes like i said it does require a really good computer, i dont consider myself having something "extraordinary". RAM is dirt cheap nowadays, the i7 i've had for years now. The Titan is still rather expensive but since i absolutely hate SLI i think it's worth the price.